“This shadow is there”, such is the title of the new text deployed by more than 400 Moroccan artists and actors who denounce black and white the “police repression” and the “defamation” of the corrupt media which seek to create a climate of fear in silencing critical voices. The Kingdom’s artistic and cultural community is fed up with this flagrant regression of human rights and freedom of expression which continues to be flouted in the country. All are rising, exacerbated by this period of health crisis, to say stop to the abuse of power. All these signatories are mobilizing to shake things up, pointing their finger on “several cases of political imprisonment and harassment, including the arrest of journalists Omar Radi and Hajar Raissouni, as well as the repression suffered by social movements”. Writers Abdellatif Laâbi and Abdellah Taïa, filmmaker Faouzi Bensaïdi, singer Oum and hundreds of others denounce all human rights violations, calling for a significant change in the political context. The manifesto calls for the “release of all political prisoners and the right of the population to seek, discuss, analyze, criticize (…) without being defamed, criminalized” or “harassed”. Latest case to date: moral harassment, repeated slander and media harassment against Omar Radi, journalist and activist arrested at the end of July for rape and espionage. Declaring himself to be a “victim of a set-up”, his trial will begin on September 22. To reinforce the manifesto, several NGOs joined the artists in condemning the arbitrary arrests, deeply concerned about a “degradation of human rights” in Morocco.
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